


Shelved (or The Whistle Stop Library Tour of the Universe)

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Books, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Libraries, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Clara show Belle the universe, one library at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelved (or The Whistle Stop Library Tour of the Universe)

**Author's Note:**

> So, there was a meme, and a question involving Eleven, Clara and Belle from Once Upon A Time, and AstroGirl said she'd like to read that fic. Turned out I was happy to write it.
> 
> AU from S4 for _Once Upon A Time_. (Well, assuming that "after finding out the truth, Belle is accidentally kidnapped by a passing Time Lord and taken to see the universe's most famous libraries" is not going to become canon in the autumn.) Probably AU for Doctor Who as well, although you never know, especially with Eleven.
> 
> Mild Clara/Belle; some possible implied Clara/Belle/Doctor. No spoilers.

It wasn’t that the Doctor wouldn’t take Belle back to where she belonged – after all, he hadn’t meant for her to be in the TARDIS when they’d left anyway – but Storybrooke was hard to find again once you’d left.

“It’s sort of only half there,” he said, with much hand-waving going into the explanation. “It’s not the old girl’s fault if she can’t pin it down. I said there were some weird readings when we arrived, didn’t I?”

Clara leant on one of the railings in the console room and thought about the question. “You did, but then you also said a lot of other things, mostly about the weather and the colour of your ties and if I’d like to go fishing.”

“So,” said the Doctor, swinging around, “since the one place I can’t take you is the one place you ought to be, why don’t I take you to see the sights of the universe to make up for it?”

“The _universe_?” said Belle. “You can do that?”

“Anywhere in time and space.”

“Except Storybrooke and these other lands Belle talks about,” said Clara. “So, almost anywhere in space and time.”

The Doctor put an arm around Belle. “Ignore Clara. She’s a pessimist. Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t think I know,” said Belle. A land without magic had been new enough, let alone a whole universe without magic. Where did a person start?

“Well, what sort of things do you like?” he asked.

Belle gave a wry smile. “I like books?”

***

The Doctor had never visited so many libraries in a row before. (Well, possibly excepting that time in his Eighth incarnation when he’d decided to write a doctoral thesis on the role of tea in preventing wars, which was eventually derailed by the disappointing fact that there was no evidence so far that it ever had, and he should get out there and work on that instead.)

“Don’t tell me,” said Clara, when they landed. “Library of Alexandria next, is it?”

The Doctor gave her a hurt look. “I’ve got more imagination than that. It’s the living library of Alsyosan!”

“Living library?” said Clara. “As opposed to all the dead ones we’ve seen lately?”

“Exactly!” the Doctor said, and ushered his two companions out of the door.

 

Clara peered around the corner of the shelves, watching Belle. The other woman had appreciated all the libraries as far as she could tell, but she was sure she wasn’t happy. Of course, Clara reminded herself, she’d was a fairy tale character who’d just technically been kidnapped by an alien from outer space and his remarkably smart, talented and cute friend and that had to take some getting used to, but it seemed to Clara that it was something else that was troubling Belle.

“Spying on your friends?” asked one of the books she was leaning on. “Not good etiquette, darling.”

“You a book on manners, then?”

“Yes,” said the book. “I’d say you’re in dire need of me. You should take me out. Carefully, and don’t read while you’re eating –”

“Or talk with my mouth full or run in the corridors,” said Clara. “Thanks. I think I’ll pass.”

“Probably a hopeless case,” whispered the book to its neighbour as Clara walked on past. “Doubt even I could have helped.”

***

“You all right?” Clara asked in an undertone, lying on the floor next to Belle in the Upside Down Library of Berrnga. “Belle?”

“I’d just never imagined there were so many different kinds of libraries,” said Belle, gazing upwards at the books. “How does this one even work?”

Clara remembered the Doctor’s instructions, and stretched a hand upwards and said, “History, please!”

Books rained down on them.

“I think maybe you should have been a little more specific,” said Belle, seizing hold of a large volume and sheltering them both under it as the hail of history books continued. “One Dewey Decimal number at a time, or whatever its equivalent is. There must be a catalogue.”

“Anyway,” Clara said, “that wasn’t what I meant by all right. I meant are _you_ okay?”

“It’s nice here,” said Belle. Another book fell between them, but it seemed to be the last. “So, I suppose so.”

Clara lay back down. “Oh. Bad break-up?” she said.

“The worst,” said Belle. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Clara thought some more. “Is that don’t want to talk about it as in you really, really don’t want to talk or as in you want to really?”

Belle shrugged.

Clara slipped her hand into Belle’s. “How long do you reckon before the Doctor runs out of libraries?”

“I suppose the universe is a big place,” said Belle.

“Could be a while, then,” said Clara, and squeezed her hand tight around Belle’s.

 

***

“I made a slight error,” said the Doctor. “A small miscalculation that could have happened to anyone!”

Clara prepared herself for the worst. “Doctor!”

“They should have had a better name! A big sign! Would a great big sign saying, ‘Oh, by the way we’re the universe’s largest collection of –” he shifted away from Clara “– literature of a, well, a certain kind’ be so difficult? Anyway, it’s definitely not my fault if the curators have worrying ideas about payment. I didn’t know –”

Clara filtered that sentence through the Doctor-speak-translation section of her brain, and then threw a small, fat, well-aimed volume of erotica at him.

“I said it’s not my fault!”

“You brought us here, so, yes, Doctor, it is,” said Clara. “Anyway, I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about Belle!”

“Look, there’s no need to throw books about. I don’t know, how many libraries do you have to take a person to before they learn a basic lesson like that? I had a word with them and we can get round it if we marry each other and –”

“What?”

“All three of us,” said the Doctor. “You do like me and Belle better than the Carridians, don’t you? I mean, fine in their own way, but physiologically speaking, I don’t think we’d be very compatible. All those –” He waved his hands around, illustrating the limits of the aliens’ form.

Clara raised her eyebrows at him. From peeking into a few of the books around her, she’d come to the conclusion that the Carridians would probably be able to work their way around any such cultural boundaries without too much difficulty. It was pretty impressive, actually, not to mention eye-opening.

“Clara?”

She sighed. “Oh, all right, Doctor, but _you_ have to explain it to Belle, not me. And apologise nicely afterwards.”

“It’s all right,” said the Doctor. “I know a nice little library on Groff where they’ll divorce you in a trice, no questions asked. They specialise in research on alien cultures who want to marry everybody all the time, so they have to. You know,” he said, wrinkling his face, “it’s really funny how many of those there are.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“You don’t have to. I’ll prove it to you, right after the ceremony and the, er –”

“Why,” said Clara, “do I travel with you?”

“I have the best taste in bow-ties,” said the Doctor, and smiled at her.

Clara eyed him sternly. “That is definitely not it.”

***

Their visit to the Labyrinthine Library of Hadryn coincided with an attack by a race called the Corl. Clara was only surprised they’d managed to get this many libraries along without alien attack or ancient evil manifesting itself. (You couldn’t really count that book on etiquette that had taken a dislike to her, even if it had gossiped about her to all its neighbours and let the vicious rumours follow her up and down the aisles).

What did surprise Clara was that Belle coped well with the sudden arrival of a bunch of monsters. In fact, she took it upon herself to talk to the aliens and prevented the conflict with tea and sympathetic conversation. The Doctor said something about a thesis he’d have finished centuries ago if he’d met her back in the day, and that she was wonderful, and kissed her.

Clara agreed, and hugged Belle. After all, they were only newly divorced, weren’t they? 

***

“No, really,” said the Doctor, leading them through what looked exactly like a large field of flowers, “it is a library!”

Clara frowned. “How can it be?”

“Smell the roses,” he said. “You’ll see.”

And as Belle found out the next second, that was true, but you also had to avoid the ferocious librarians who looked like giant earth worms. To be fair, they did apologise afterwards for the misunderstanding – they’d had some bad experiences with humanoids before – but it was still lucky Clara had had an traditional-style hardback book handy with which to whack it before it ate Belle.

“Clara,” said the Doctor, afterwards, “which library did you steal that book from?”

Clara turned pink. “Hey, it was an accident! I picked it up after I threw it at you and then I forgot I had it, what with all the getting married –”

“Oh,” said the Doctor, with a definite note of alarm in his voice. “ _That_ library. Yes, well, bad Clara, don’t nick library books again.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. Honestly, like he didn’t steal thing all the time. He didn’t just steal the books, he stole the librarians. With which thought she went in search of the living proof of that.

***

“You know,” said Clara, as they were sitting together in Belle’s room in the TARDIS. “If you get tired of the intergalactic library tour any time soon, I’m due to go home again. I could make room for you.”

“Oh?” said Belle.

“My school’s got a great library, and we could use a volunteer to run it.”

“It sounds nice,” said Belle. “How would you explain who I was?”

“You’d have to pretend to be my latest girlfriend,” said Clara. “Shouldn’t be too hard, right?”

“Pretend?”

Clara smiled at her. “Well, I can’t tell them the truth – that you’re my ex-wife from that time I married you and my other best friend in an erotic library in outer space to avoid paying the fines.”

“Give me a few more libraries yet,” said Belle, and smiled back.


End file.
